


History Has Its Eyes on You

by QueenForADay



Category: Star Wars Episode VII: The Force Awakens (2015)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Fantasy, Alternate Universe - Historical, F/F, F/M, Historical Elements, M/M
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-02-19
Updated: 2016-02-20
Packaged: 2018-05-21 22:11:15
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 3
Words: 6,197
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6059913
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/QueenForADay/pseuds/QueenForADay
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Finn is recruited into the service of Queen Organa. With the reports of Supreme Leader Snoke massing an army from the Old Empire, the kingdom of D'Qar is forced to take action under their new Queen.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> I'm totally not going to deny that this was MASSIVELY inspired by therealmcgee's artwork that Mr John Boyega shared...Shout out to you, mate :) Go show them some love: http://therealmcgee.tumblr.com/

Don’t stop running.

Don’t stop for anything.

Eventually he broke the only two rules he ran away with.

He fled Starkiller, crossed the Ice Mountains that served as its border, travelled into the next kingdom and eventually had to stop. His legs hurt, and he was pretty sure that the wound on his shoulder was getting infected. Bloody arrows.

Finn holds his shoulder with his hand, trying his best not to move the joint too much. The wet blood that had stained his uniform was now drying and crusting over. He had shed his white uniform jacket as soon as he entered D’Qar – it was kriffing warm, too warm, why the hell were a snow kingdom and tropical kingdom next to each other?!

Finn staggers along the dirt road. A few traders passed, but now that night was settling in, he really wished he had asked for a ride. A ride where, he didn’t know. He just wanted to get off of this kriffing road. His boots were starting to hurt his feet, and the back of his legs were starting to pound with pain.

The trees seem to go one for leagues. He knew that D’Qar was a forest kingdom, but this was just stupid. They towered above him, blocking out the light of the rising moon. The light he needed to see where he was going.

There’s a flickering light between the trees.

The more ground Finn gained, he could make out a small thatched inn nestled among the trees. There are a free horses tied outside, and the opened door let Finn hear the laughter and singing from inside. It would be easier to take one of the horses and take off.

It would be smarter to stay the night and make sure that the wound in his shoulder wasn’t infected.

He just escaped the First Order Empire. He wasn’t about to die from an infected wound.

He staggers along the last bit of road before he stands in front of the inn. A few drunkards fall out of the door, with the shouting of a woman coming from inside. Finn tilts his head, trying to get a better look inside.

That’s when a tiny woman – standing as tall as Finn’s chest – runs the drunkards out with a stick. They wearily try to get on their horses, but fall to the hard ground and give up.

“Sleep out here if you want to,” she grumbles under her breath, shaking the stick in their direction, “don’t ever come into my inn again.”

As she shuffled back to the inn’s door, she spots Finn. He can only imagine what he looks like – dressed in white and black, his uniform a mess, and a bleeding shoulder. She narrows her eyes at him, but stands to the side. “Get in,” she orders, pointing the stick to the door. Finn jumps forward, passing the small woman and stepping inside.

He almost groans at the warmth inside. The inn smells like ale and whiskey, food and the coals from the hearth in the middle of the main room. Finn starts to wobble on his feet.

He feels a hand on his back.

The small woman shakes the stick at him, then to a flight of stairs to the side of the inn. “Get upstairs,” she orders again, “I don’t want anyone dying of an infected wound in my inn.”

Finn stares at her blankly for a moment. “I-I can’t pay,” he says shakily. His voice is so hoarse. When was the last time he spoke, and not shouted for his life?

The woman waved a hand at him. “It doesn’t matter,” she says, “just get up those stairs.”

He does what the woman asks. For a tiny thing, she has a lot of presence. He watches her break up a sprouting fight between two men, shouting at them to either stop and drink or to get out. Finn thinks that the First Order would love to have someone like that on their side.

Then the thought is gone.

He’s not with the First Order anymore. He left them.

 _He’s a traitor and deserter_.

Finn’s hold on his arm tightens slightly as he walks up the stairs, slower than he would like. He takes on step at a time. The tiredness is dragging him down. All of those sleepless nights are finally catching up to him.

When he reaches the top of the stairs, he notices the small woman is suddenly behind him. He almost jumps.

She sweeps him into a vacant room. It’s simple enough, with just a single bed pressed to a wall and a chest at its foot. She usher him to sit.

“Let’s have a look at that wound then,” she says. Finn pries his hand away from his shoulder, wincing at the lack of pressure being put on the wound. His shoulder shifts slightly at the movement and he hisses.

The woman goes to the chest and pulls out strips of white cloth and a jar of green liquid. She pops the lid off and Finn almost recoils at the smell. She scowls at him. “Oh stop that,” she scolds him. She pours some of the liquid onto one of the cloths and motions to Finn’s shirt. “Off.”

The simple act of taking a shirt off is made so much more difficult with only one arm. Finn doesn’t have any trouble with the laces to the neckline, but he does struggle with getting the shirt over his head and over his injured arm. He flings the bloodied shirt to the end of the bed and looks at his shoulder.

It’s not as bad as he first thought. The arrow didn’t seem to hit anything important, he thinks, as the wound itself is clean. He panicked for a moment when he ripped the arrow out of his shoulder, thinking it was going to do more damage. But it seems like he did the right thing, he supposes.

The woman stands in front of him, still a few inches shorter than Finn even when he’s sitting down.

She presses the ointment to the wound and Finn sucks in a breath through his teeth.

“If it hurts, it’s good,” the woman tells him. There’s a faint smile on her lips as she wipes at the wound.

“I beg to differ,” Finn replies. There’s no heat behind his words. He just looks to the other side of the room and wills himself to stop shaking – whether it’s from the cold or from the pain coursing through his arm and shoulder, he doesn’t know, but it’s nothing but annoying.

The woman cleans up the wound and examines it carefully. “It doesn’t seem deep,” she tells him, “I don’t think it will need to be stitched together. It should heal by itself.”

She picks up the other piece of white cloth and starts to fold it. “You’ll need a sling though,” she says, starting to wrap the cloth around Finn’s shoulder and around his back.

Finn lets her at it, wincing when his shoulder is occasionally jostled.

She knots the sling at the front. “So you can lie on your back,” she says with a smile.

Finn smiles faintly back at her. “You’re much kinder without a stick in your hand.”

The woman chuckles. “The stick is used for the drunks. You’re not a drunk. You’re a good boy,” she says. She clasps his shoulder and looks him in the eye. “A boy who should not be getting shot with arrows.”

Finn watches her gather her things and leave. She pauses at the door. “Don’t worry about paying for your stay,” she tells him seriously.

“Thank you, Ms…?”

“Maz Kanata,” she bows her head slightly.

“Finn,” he returns the gesture.

Maz smiles again and reaches for the door’s handle. “Welcome to D’Qar, Finn.”


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Finn enters D'Qar and meets Poe for the first time.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm going to straight up apologise for the first few chapters. Story will be set up through them, as will characters and the world. As it's in the tags, it's historical/fantasy. Where, I'm a history student that was PLANNING to have it set in Europe 18th century (where everything was going down) then a page in I realised I was writing about D'Qar and Starkiller, so made it fantasy...*sigh* I'm such a good writer...

No one paid him any attention when he left the next morning.

Maz put a new dressing on his shoulder, and sent him away with a few coins and a pack of food for the walk to the capital. Her words still echo in Finn’s mind as he strolls down the long dirt road to the capital.

_Don’t ever leave the road. The forests are thick and easy to get lost in. Bandits are everywhere from the border to the capital’s gates._

He stays on the road.

A few traders pass him, waving him a good morning and then trudging past. Now in the morning light, Finn admits that D’Qar actually looks very beautiful. Streams of light come through the gaps in the tree tops and send the beams across the road. He’s seen a few animals – birds mostly that are nesting above him.

He walks for at least an hour before he pauses in his tracks. Just in the distance he can see a wall – white in colour and intersected by tall pillars and a large gate.

The capital.

He adjusts the weight of the pack on his good shoulder and continues to walk. In the quiet moments he’s getting to himself, he thinks back to all that’s happened. He left the one place he’s ever known. The heat from D’Qar is strange on his skin, since he’s only ever lived in Starkiller where it snows every day of the year.

He ran for his life. He can still feel the adrenalin coursing through his body. He woke up in that inn shaking, panicking that they would have found him. If he were a fool, he would have assured himself that it’s illegal for the First Order to cross borders. He’s not a fool, though. He knows perfectly well that they would have followed him to the bottom of the continent just to drag his ass back to Starkiller and kill him.

The thought lingers in his mind as he approaches the city.

The differences between D’Qar and Starkiller are endless. What he doesn’t expect is to have no one meet him at the gates with bows and swords. Guards in orange and white armour stand at their posts, but look out onto the forest that surrounds the city. They don’t even glance in his direction.

Maz had given him new clothes. He was wearing his uniform when he had arrived. He supposes that if he had kept his uniform, the archers would have shot him down yards ago.

They do move suddenly though.

Finn flinches, but then realise that they’ve fallen into a salute.

He looks at them for a moment before he feels the ground tremble beneath him.

Looking over his shoulder, Finn sees horses and their riders approaching. Two to the front hold up the Queen’s banners, while the rest follow behind a man in full armour on a night black horse.

Finn, and a few other people that have gathered around the city’s gate, step aside and let the company through. Their leader looks to Finn and he shifts on his feet. While he rides past, the man’s gaze doesn’t leave him. The visor on his helmet is down, and on a towering horse galloping past, Finn can’t help but shrink back into himself slightly.

He knows that the people around him don’t know he’s an ex-Trooper. But the way the gaze of the man just _landed_ on him makes Finn feel like the words STORMTROOPER are sprawled across his forehead.

The company canters into the city through the main cobblestone street. A few people that gather on the sidewalks watch them go by. Some bow, others salute, and the children try to run alongside the horses squealing happily.

This isn’t Starkiller at all, Finn thinks.

The capital is stunning. There are towering stone townhouses that line the clean streets. Finn looks around at the city and gets the smell of bread and cakes from a bakery nearby. A street down he finds a blacksmith’s forge. Two people stand there, a well-built man and a smaller woman. Finn watches them as they inspect a newly forged sword. Finn didn’t make weapons in Starkiller, but he knows a freshly forged sword when he sees one.

He stands at the street’s corner and watches. The muscled man turns to the girl – dressed in blacksmith’s clothes of a loose fitting shirt with the sleeves rolled up, and an apron wrapped around her middle. She must be his apprentice, then, Finn notices.

He passes the sword to her, lowers himself down to look in her eyes and gives her a bright smile. He says something that Finn doesn’t quite hear over the crowds in the city’s streets, but from her excited squeal and her jumping up and down, he knows what it’s about.

Finn eventually leaves the corner and wanders around the city. Truthfully, he doesn’t know what to do now that he’s here. The week that he had been running from the Order, the only thing in his head was _GET TO D’QAR_. Now that’s he’s here, he feels lost again.

He passes more bakeries, children playing in the street with sticks for swords, a couple of book stores and a collection of houses with bright flowers on the windowsills. Everything is just so different; it’s almost too much for him to take in.

His shoulder starts to throb. True to Maz’s words, it’s better than what it was yesterday. The pain is mostly gone, apart from the occasional sting from moving it too much, and it won’t be getting infected anytime soon. The sling over his shirt gets the attention of a few people, but no one approaches him. He should probably find an inn.

On his wanderings, he spots two guards outside a bakery. They’re in their armour, with swords sheathed to their sides and their helmets under their arms.

He approaches the bakery, with the smell of baked bread and spiced pastries making his stomach ache.

One of the guards looks at him. There’s a man and a woman, both with dark hair and dark eyes, and both standing at equal height. The man’s looking at him. Finn instinctively lowers his gaze to the ground.

“Welcome to the capital,” the guard smiles at him as he walks past. Finn freezes at the front of the bakery.

The other guard is looking at him with curious eyes. Her gaze shifts between the other guard and Finn before she bites into an apple tart.

Finn looks at the guard blankly for a moment.

The guard presses on. “I saw you outside the gates. You looked like a wanderer.”

The woman beside the guard hit his arm. “You can’t just call strangers _wanderers_ you idiot.”

“I’m your commanding officer,” he smirked at the woman, “you can’t speak to me like that.”

“I’m your best friend,” she corrected, “of course I am.”

Finn looks to the guard’s arm. Underneath it, a familiar helmet is tucked there. Finn looks back up to the guard. “You were in the company that passed.”

The guard smiles brightly, and almost proudly. “Captain Poe Dameron,” the man outstretches his hand. Finn shakes it lightly. The captain nods to the woman at his side. “Jessika Pava, my Second in command.”

The woman bows her head at Finn and he returns the gesture.

“I haven’t seen you around,” Poe comments, “so I presume you’re new?”

Finn nods stiffly. “Yeah, I…um, I left home recently.”

Poe’s face falls slightly. “Oh? If you don’t mind me asking, why?”

Jessika stares at the side of his face. There’s such fire in her eyes that it makes Finn want to slink away and hide.

Finn shakes his head. “It wasn’t a nice place to live, that’s all. I thought I could do better for myself here.”

That makes the captain smile again. What a brilliant smile it is, Finn thinks. “Well the capital is a nice place to live,” he says brightly. He watches Finn for a moment before continuing, “Do you have a place to stay yet?”

Finn shakes his head.

The captain turns to his Second. “We have a spare room, don’t we?”

Finn startles slightly. “Thank you Captain but I don’t think-”

“-We have a lot of spare rooms, Captain,” Jessika responds after taking a moment to think. She looks to Finn who has a look of terror on his face. “Don’t worry – the guards’ quarters aren’t a part of the castle at all. It’s more like a house we have to ourselves.”

Finn swallows thickly.

“We can’t let someone new not have a place to stay,” Jessika comments. She nods to his shoulder. “Especially not one who’s injured.”

Finn pauses for a moment. He would gladly just live in an inn, and take up a job somewhere in the city to pay for the nights he stays there. But living in the guards’ barracks?

“I’ll have a word with my superior about taking you on,” Poe says, “if you’re worried about work?”

Finn looks to him. The captain’s face is nothing but genuine, as is his Second’s.

He rubs the back of his neck with his good hand and nods. “Yeah, I mean, I’d love to.”

The captain’s smile only brightens. “Excellent,” he says. He reaches into his pocket and fishes out a handful of silver coins. He hands them to his Second. “Get some bread and some cakes to bring back,” he says. Before Jessika can walk into the bakery, Poe tosses a gold coin in her direction. “Give that to Jenny. _Specifically Jenny_.”

Jessika waves dismissively at her captain and walks into the bakery.

Poe laughs. “Jenny makes the best breads. She feeds us in the barracks, so I like to make sure she’s getting paid for her work.”

“She sounds nice.”

“She’s wonderful,” Poe smiles, “you’d like her.”

Jessika comes back with a bag of baked bread and another of slices of cake. "Lysa said that Jenny wasn't there, but she can give the coins to her when she comes back." She pushes one of the bags to Poe. “I’m not carrying all of this stuff, _Captain_ ,” she comments and leads them through the city streets.

Finn walks alongside Poe, talking about everything and anything. After spending a week talking to only a handful of people, and staying silent after that, it’s odd to have a conversation with someone.

Children from the sides of the streets run up to the guards and try to get them to play.

Poe laughs. “I’ve work to do,” he says, still laughing at their pouting faces. He points to one kid holding a stick. “I’ll be back though. Keep that sword sharp for me.”

The child nods happily and runs off with his friends, yelling and squealing as they return to their games. Finn watches them with a frown.

He can feel Poe looking at him. “Kids and their games,” he says.

“Why would they be playing like that?”

“Like what?”

“Fighting. Why would they make fighting a game?”

Poe looks at Finn blankly. “It’s just kids being kids,” he says, “I don’t know. They grow up on stories of great soldiers and warriors, so I suppose they just want to grow up like that.”

Finn nods stiffly. He still doesn’t understand it, but they’re moving through the city streets again until they reach a large town house. Poe almost laughs at Finn’s expression when he sees the palace. He hadn’t thought to look for it when he walked into the city, but he’s happy that he can see it now. Just another few metres down the street is the palace gates, manned by ten men – five outside and five inside. The towers of the castle are pointed and high, while the main building itself is thick and blocky. It’s beautiful though, Finn thinks, it’s stone walls bright and clean against the sun.

He hears a low groan of a door being open. Looking up to the townhouse, Jessika walks inside and Poe waits on the steps that are outside of it.

“Come on in,” he says brightly and leads Finn inside. There are a few guards in the large opened room. They all fix their eyes onto Finn as soon as he’s inside.

Poe steps in front of Finn. “He’s staying here for as long as he wants,” he comments. The guards simply nod and fall out, each going their own way through the house. Some of them snatch bread and cakes from the bags they’ve set on the ornate table just inside the door.

Jessika starts unclasp some of the laces on her armour. She waves a goodbye at Poe as she walks up a large flight of stairs and disappears into a hallway.

Poe looks to Finn. “The rest of them won’t bother you,” he assures the other man, “I’ll have a word with them.”

Finn bites the inside of his cheek. “You don’t have to. I understand, I mean, I’m not a guard, so I shouldn’t be here-”

“-I’ll have a word with my superior,” Poe says. Finn raises an eyebrow at him. “You’re built like a soldier, so I assumed when I saw you outside the gates that you were just that. Unless you’re a smith? That’s even better: we don’t have enough of those.”

Finn stares at him for a moment before he shakes his head. “I’m not a smith, no. I’m a soldier. I _used_ to be a soldier, I mean, I left, but it was authorised leave, um-”

Poe held up his hand. “It’s alright.”

The captain hands him some bread and starts to unclasp his own armour. “Get yourself comfortable, and Jess will show you to your room later.”

Finn takes the bread in his good hand. “Thank you Captain.”

Poe smiles at him. “Poe. When we’re on duty, I’m Captain. When we’re here, I’m Poe.”

“HAVE YOU BEEN USING MY BATHSALTS YOU KRIFFING WENCH?!”

Poe winces slightly and laughs. “Sometimes I’m _that_ ,” he smiles. Finn watches him walk up the stairs and starts shouting back at Jess.

Everything about the house is warm and homely. It doesn’t look like a barracks, but more like a home. There are paintings on the walls and coats on the racks just inside the door. The opened out area is adorned with ornate items of furniture, then splits into hallways leading throughout the house. The stairs are wide and lead to an even bigger upstairs.

Finn takes a bite of the bread and smiles to himself.

This could definitely work.


	3. Chapter 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Finn meets with the Queen, and his future within D'Qar is decided. Meanwhile, Poe finds out that his worst nightmare has come true.

Finn fell into step beside Poe.

The captain of the guard marches dutifully through the halls of the palace. Finn hurries along beside him, slightly terrified that he’ll get lost in the large palace. Servants and maids pass them as Poe leads them through winding corridors that, in Finn’s eyes, all look the same. Even if he tried to plan his route out of the palace, he doesn’t think it would work.

His mind wanders back to this morning. He woke up to shouting – not the Empire kind of shouting, but the shouting of friends. He woke to Jess raising hell in the hallway outside his room about the noise that the other guards are making. When he threw on clothes provided to him – a dress-jacket of brown, red and black, breeches and boots – he wandered down to the main hall where Poe was sitting with the guards for breakfast. Finn still remembers the smells and the sight of that much food being in one place: bacon, eggs, bread, fruits, all of which he had never seen enough of in his days in the Empire.

He school’s his face into something neutral. He wonders if it’s obvious that he’s an empirical runaway.

Poe did remark earlier on about how stiffly Finn stood when he waited for the captain in the viewing room of the townhouse. Finn was always straight-backed, head held high. He didn’t know anything else.

Now he hurried along beside the man, making idly conversation with him.

“My superior is a nice woman,” Poe tells him. Finn’s slightly relieved, but he still doesn’t understand why he’s in the palace. If Poe’s the captain, then surely his superior would also live in the townhouse too. He keeps his questions to himself and folds his arms behind his back.

“A soldier then,” Poe says, half to himself and half to Finn. “I’ll see what I can do.”

He gives Finn another one of those dashing bright smiles.

They end up outside two large oak doors, both adored with silver and gold handles and decoration.

Finn bristles slightly.

The doors groan open and Poe strides comfortably through. Finn follows behind him, looking over his shoulder until he locks eyes with a woman on a throne.

“Captain,” the woman smiles brightly, raising from the throne and stepping down from the dais. Finn’s steps falter slightly at the embrace the Queen and the Captain share. She’s a head shorter than the captain, and smiles up at him as she cups his face with both of her hands. “I was not informed that you had returned.”

“Pava and our company returned yesterday, your Grace.”

Something flickers in the Queen’s eyes. “Tell me when you return. I worry otherwise.”

Poe bows his head slightly. “Apologies, your Grace.”

The Queen’s eyes flicker over to Finn. He straightens under the gaze. Poe looks over his shoulder to Finn too, and flashes him a small smile. “I would like to offer this man a position in the guard.”

Poe looks back to the Queen. “We’re low on men, your Grace, and we need all the help we can get,” he explains quietly, “and I would rather not start conscripting young and inexperienced boys.”

The Queen still stares at Finn. He shifts on his feet at the heat of her gaze. When she flicks her gaze over to Poe, she nods, “I would be against conscription too, Captain.”

Finn tenses when the Queen walks towards him. Her gait is poised, but powerful, unlike anything he’s ever seen before. There’s no crown on her head, but her dress is orange, black and white, trails along the ground and is adorned in silks and lace.

“My captain tells me that you are a soldier,” she says Finn nods stiffly. She smiles. “Good. We need more of you.”

Poe is watching them.

“Your Majesty, I-I,” Finn stutters over his words, “Thank you.”

She bows her head and turns back to the captain. “Train this one well, Captain,” she tells him. The Queen turns on her heel and walks back to her throne. There are two guards standing at the end of the dais. They haven’t moved an inch since he entered the room, but the hands on their swords tightened slightly at Finn’s new face.

Poe nods firmly. “I will, your Grace.”

 

Finn’s shoulder is still too weak to use, but Poe does walk him around the city.

He tells the other man that he’s supposed to be on city watch anyway, so giving Finn a proper tour of the city isn’t a problem.

Finn walks beside him, both men strolling idly along the cobblestone streets. Poe isn’t in his armour, but a dress jacket similar to Finn’s, orange in colour and the front opened up. With the casual appearance of the loose white shirt underneath his jacket, his sword strapped to his waist and worn leather boots, he doesn’t look like the captain of the royal guard.

Poe tells him stories of each store they pass – the bakers and how they feed the poorer of the city for half, or free of charge, the farriers on how they take care of the guards’ horses as if they were their own, and then they get to the smiths. Poe raps his knuckles on the front door to the store and is waved in by a dark haired young woman.

“Rey,” Poe smiles brightly.

Finn recognises her as the woman he saw when he first came to the city. Her face is smudged with coal and dirt, and strands of her hair fall from the three ties she has them in.

She steps out from the wooden counter and wraps her arms around Poe in a tight hug.

When she pulls away, she perks up. “Oh! Your bow is ready,” she says, already racing to a back room in the shop. Finn looks around – the shop is full of cabinets with weapons on display, swords, daggers, spear-heads, everything. There’s a faint hammering sound coming from the outside, and Finn assumes there’s another forge outside.

The girl – Rey – returns to the shop with a cloth-covered package in her arms. She undoes the laces surrounding the parcel and hands him a bow.

Its black – almost ebony – with bright white carvings along the sides.

“Thank you Rey,” Poe says, looking at the detailed work of the bow. From what he can see, Finn thinks it’s beautiful. All empirical weapons were plain and dull, with their only use being for combat, and to be easily replaced if they were broken or lost. He’s never seen a weapon that looked like an art piece.

Poe turns to him and hands him the bow. “Isn’t it beautiful, buddy?”

Finn nods. He runs his thumbs over the white lines that run all around the bow. Poe turns back to Rey. “You’ve really outdone yourself, Rey, thank you.”

Poe clasps a hand on Finn’s shoulder. “This is Finn; he’s new to the city. Her Grace inducted him into the guard this morning.”

Rey smiled warmly at him. “Congratulations.”

“He’ll need a sword,” Poe says. Rey nods and disappears again into the forge.

Finn looks blankly to Poe. “I don’t have any money-”

Poe waves a hand at him. “Don’t worry about it buddy,” he smiles, “A lot of the guards owe Rey and Jaq money. Consider this a gift.”

“You’ve already given me a job in the _Queen’s guard_.”

“I’m a generous guy,” Poe said.

Rey returned with a sword in its sheathe. She looked at Finn for a second, before nodding to herself and handing him a one-handed sword. “You’re strong-looking, so something two-handed would have done fine, but I don’t have any left.”

Finn stares down at the leather sheathe – even that’s beautiful. It has emblems of the Queen etched into the soft leather. It has a long belt around it, with a silver buckle.

Poe snickers at Finn’s shocked face. “He loves it, thank you Rey,” he says to the smith. She holds up soot-covered hands and smiles humbly.

Finn ties the belt around his waist, and the sword sits comfortably to his side. Poe hands Rey a few gold coins. She tries to hand them back, but Poe only waves her away. “You’ve done too much for us,” he explains.

When they finally leave the forge, Finn’s hand goes to the hilt of his sword, feeling the handle and testing the grip. Wearing his brown and red coloured dress jacket, he’s aware he doesn’t look like a guard, but then again neither does Poe. The captain is dressed in casual clothes, idly walking through the city as if he has all the time in the world.

“It suits you,” Poe comments. Finn looks down at himself and then back up to Poe.

“Thank you, Poe,” he says.

They fall back into their stroll easily, wandering the cities.

Finn lets his mind wander. He’s still listening to the stories Poe is telling him, but he wonders. He’s lucky to have come to D’Qar. Force – he’s lucky to have made it out of the empire alive. The thought of that unsettles him. When Finn looks to Poe, and laughs along with his stories, he can’t help but have the feeling to blurt it out that _I used to work for the empire_.

Poe sighs contently when they wander into a street drenched in light from the sun. It’s warm against Finn’s skin and there’s a thin sheen of sweat along his brow. Poe is smiling to himself and drinking in the light. “The weather is so temperamental,” he tells Finn, “sometimes it will rain, and other times it will be like this.”

“It’s better than where I used to live.”

“Where’s that?”

Finn pauses. Now isn’t the time to tell him. Not yet.

“In the east, in a region near the northern territories.”

Poe nods solemnly. “It’s pretty cold there. I used to be stationed there before I worked under the Queen.”

Finn watches Poe carefully.

Poe clasps and hand on his shoulder again, and Finn doubts he’ll ever grow tired of the feeling of the solid warmth that comes from the touch. “Come on, my shift is over,” Poe says and begins to lead them back to the townhouse. They pass Jess and a bigger guard. Snap, Finn thinks his name is.

While on the walk home, the children run up to Poe and ask him to play with them. Some of them look to Finn. They spot the sword to his waist and the way he’s dressed similarly to Poe. “Can your friend play instead?” a little blond girl asks. Poe laughs and shakes his head.

“My friend and I need to get back to the barracks,” Poe smiles at Finn. Heat rises to his cheek and he looks to the ground. “I’ll see if I’m free tomorrow.”

The children groan, but quickly scatter and continue their games in the streets, weaving between workers and pedestrians.

Finn and Poe continue their walk to the townhouse. Finn can see it at the end of the street, it’s door is open and a woman standing outside being talked to by another guard. The guard spots them coming and point to them so that the woman can see them too. Finn tenses slightly when he can see that she’s crying.

Poe quickens his pace slightly. Finn startles and tries to keep up with him.

The woman – young with dark hair – spots Poe and raises a hand to her mouth. “I’m so sorry captain,” she sobs, “I’m so, so sorry.”

Her arms go around Poe’s middle and she cries into his chest. Poe’s arms wrap around her and he gently rocks her. Finn stands aside, turning away from the scene.

“I’m so sorry.”

“What happened?”

“S-She’s not coming back, Poe,” Lysa sobs, pulling away from Poe’s chest to look up at him, “they got her too.”

“Who? What are you talking about?”

“Jenny!” Lysa takes in a ragged breath. Poe hushes her and tries to bring her inside and out of view of the small crowd that gathered at the end of the street. Finn turns to them and stares. Most turn away and continues their business elsewhere.

Poe holds the woman up with an arm around her back and supporting her arm with his other.

Finn doesn’t miss how the colour has drained from Poe’s face. He follows the captain and the woman silently into the townhouse. The door shuts behind them with a thud.

“Let’s go to the drawing room,” Poe says to her quietly, leading her down a hallway and into a grand and opened living area. The hearth has been lit, and Poe leads Lysa to sit on an armchair in front of the fire. “Tell me what happened, very slowly.”

The guard that followed them in hands Lysa a handkerchief and then leaves the room.

Poe pulls up a chair in front of Lysa and sits forward with his hands clasps between them. Finn walks to the other side of the room. It’s large enough that with the space he puts between them, and the hushed conversation that falls between the captain and the woman, he doesn’t hear much.

He, instead, looks to the books that line the bookshelves, the old trinkets that are scattered through the room. Everything looks old and worn, but in a loving way. A sharp contrast to the black and white of the empire.

He hears a sharp intake of breath.

He hears a chair being pushed back, and then feet storm out of the drawing room. Finn peers back over to the hearth, and only sees Lysa sitting slumped against the back of the chair with the handkerchief to her eyes.

A guard comes back in and tries to console her.

Poe’s chair is empty.

Finn stiffens slightly and walks quickly out of the room. He hears footsteps storm up the stairs and then a banging of a door.

He sighs through his nose.

The front door swings open and Jess runs into the hallway and almost collides into him. “Where’s the captain?”

“Upstairs,” he answers.

Jess starts to take off again, but stops in her tracks when she sees Lysa being led out by a guard. She spins back to Finn. “He already knows?”

Finn shrugs his good shoulder. “I don’t know. I think so,” he pauses, “I didn’t listen to them talking.”

Jess gives him a sad smile. She clasps him on the upper arm and turns to the stairs. There’s more noise coming from the rooms. Things are being thrown about in there.”

“I’ll explain later,” Jess says, “or else he can, but just….thank you.”

“For what?”

Jess frowns. “I don’t know. Just thank you.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Comments and Kudo welcomed. 
> 
> Drop by my tumblr is you would like to request a drabble for my other series, or just want to chat :)
> 
> yourqueenforayear.tumblr.com

**Author's Note:**

> My tumblr is yourqueenforayear.tumblr.com. Come and fan-freak with me about Stormpilot, Star Wars things and everything in between.
> 
> Comments and kudos GLADLY welcomed. Love you all xxx


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